Satchmo: A Man for All Ages

By

Nat Hentoff

Updated Jan. 26, 1998 12:01 a.m. ET

During a celebration of Louis Armstrong's 70th birthday at the 1970 Newport Jazz Festival, Dizzy Gillespie said: "If it hadn't been for him, there wouldn't have been none of us. I want to thank Mr. Louis Armstrong for my livelihood." Armstrong died the next year, but his presence remains in the playing of generations of improvisers on all instruments, many who know him only from recordings.

Billie Holiday used to give part of the reason. For her, it was his trumpet, not his singing. "He didn't say any...